This
month we’re blogging at YA Outside the Lines about books that touch us, or make
us laugh, or lift our spirits. They’re crucial, I think, in these pandemic
days.
I’ve
been doing almost exclusively comfort reads since March. Okay, there’s always
an exception. The exception, of course, would be books for work: research or
craft books, or YA novels that help keep my writer’s voice in the mind of a
17-year-old girl.
(For
better or worse, though, my mind usually IS that of a 17-year-old girl.)
I’m
currently working on a series about a high school for psychics, so I’ve been rereading
Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and the Oh.
My. Gods. novels by Tera Lynn Childs. (Brutal work, but someone’s gotta do
it.) And Save the Cat by the
brilliant and way-too-short-lived Blake Snyder.
But
just for me? I’ve been reading historical romance: my ultimate comfort reads.
The
tricky thing for me as a writer is that whatever I read can unconsciously affect
my own novels. Years ago, I was reading Bridget
Jones’s Diary when I suddenly caught my own characters talking about “shagging,”
and that was it for Bridget until I finished writing that particular novel.
The
language in historical novels is so utterly different from my own that, even if
it pops up in my writing, I immediately recognize it. A couple of examples: “ninnyhammer”
and “watering pot.” THOSE aren’t happening in a modern novel, YA or otherwise.
Historical
novels are also filled with ballrooms, debutantes (a few of whom, including the
heroine in almost every story, are quite clever), and English dukes, earls,
viscounts, etc., some of whom are delicious rakes. Totally not part of my life
or general way of thinking. I love that.
Historicals
are an escape. In 2020, escape is the ultimate quest.
And
since 2020 makes me crave a GUARANTEED escape, I’ve been rereading a lot of
historicals. One series I love is the Westcott series by Mary Balogh. It starts
with Someone to Love, featuring poor-orphan-turned-major-heiress
Anna Snow and Avery Archer, the Duke of Netherby. Avery is the closest
competition I’ve seen to my ultimate historical romance hero, Jo Beverley’s
Lord Rothgar, who first appeared in My
Lady Notorious and who makes Jane Austen’s Mr. Darcy look ... well, yawn.
Anyway, I just reread Someone to Love
last week. Swoon!
But
there are escapes, and there are ESCAPES. So now, at the end of this blog, I
finally get to its subject line.
I
LOVE YOU, GEORGETTE HEYER.
When
I was a young pup of a writer and still practicing law, my then-secretary gave
me Georgette Heyer’s Frederica and basically
told me that I would never amount to anything as a novelist until I read
Georgette Heyer’s novels.
Barb
Miller, you were so right. Thank you. And I still love Frederica to death.
Georgette
Heyer died in 1974. Before her death she produced an amazing number of
historical romances and other novels, filled to the brim with humor and
extremely lowbrow slang and twists and turns and, yes, romance. She’s often
called the next best thing to Jane Austen, but she’s really nothing like Jane
Austen. I love them both, but Jane completed a mere six novels in her lifetime
and Georgette (who clearly KNEW I would be desperate for comfort reads in 2020)
wrote more than 50.
Aside
from Frederica, which will always
have my heart (yikes, there goes my YA voice!), I can’t possibly recommend one
or three or five of her novels, because my favorites are usually the ones I’ve
just read. But I WILL note that in These
Old Shades, the Duke of Avon is Georgette Heyer’s entry in the “Who Can
Possibly Compete with Jo Beverley’s Lord Rothgar” contest. Heh heh.
So
go read some Georgette Heyer already!
Mary
Strand is the author of Pride, Prejudice, and Push-Up Bras
and three other novels in the Bennet Sisters YA series. You can find out more
about her at marystrand.com.